Ruh roh...TIME: "The surge's short shelf life; Success of U.S. surge in Iraq cut short by bombings"

[Bluebear]

Hospital officials in northwestern Iraq have told TIME that the death toll from Tuesday's blasts in Qahataniya may exceed 300, making the multiple suicide bombings the deadliest terrorist operation in the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. One hospital is saying that there are at least 500 bodies and that 375 people are injured. That report, however, cannot yet be verified. The only previous occasion when the toll from concerted attacks has exceeded 200 was last November, when six car-bombs in Baghdad's Sadr City killed 215 people. If the toll in the Qataniya incident grows, it could become the worst terrorist incident since al-Qaeda's September 11, 2001 attack on the U.S. (The Beslan massacre in Russia in September 2004 came to approximately 330, about half of the total children).

Since then, the massive "surge" of U.S. and Iraqi troops in and around Baghdad has made the Iraqi capital safer than before from such bombings - but terrorist groups have stepped up attacks elsewhere. There have been a number of attacks in northern Iraq, which had enjoyed a long spell of peace before the start of the "surge."

Tuesday's bombings were also a reminder that even successful U.S. military operations can have a short shelf life - a sobering thought for Bush Administration officials and independent analysts who have recently been talking up the successes of the "surge." After all, the area around Qahataniya was the scene of a major anti-insurgent operation barely two years ago. In the fall of 2005, some 8,000 American and Iraqi troops flushed a terrorist group out of the nearby town of Tal Afar in an operation that was a precursor to the "clear, hold and build" strategy that underpins the current "surge." A few months later, President Bush cited Tal Afar as a success story for the U.S. enterprise in Iraq.

There have been several attacks in and around Tal Afar since then; last March, two truck bombs killed more than 100 people in a Shi'ite neighborhood in the town. The bombings in Qahataniya were a deadly reminder that the terrorists have not gone very far away.

The U.S. military said al-Qaeda was the prime suspect; some Iraqi government officials fingered Ansar al-Sunnah, which has links to al-Qaeda and has long been active in northern Iraq. Early reports suggest the majority of the victims were Yazidis, a pre-Islamic sect in Syria and northern Iraq....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20070815/wl_time/thesurgesshortshelflife

[phantom power]

1. There was never any success.

[aquart]

2. "Success"?

[ProfessorGAC]

9. Sure. They Successfully Moved. . .

. . . the location of the violence! No less of it. Just spread it around! Very successful.
GAC

[soothsayer]

3. oh the success bill kristol vouched for on TDS? erm....yeah.

[InternalDialogue]

4. "No one could have anticipated that there would continue to be violence elsewhere in Iraq."

"Had the violence abated, the surge would have worked. Not our fault."

[Berry Cool]

5. Come on, the operation would've been a complete success

if only the patient hadn't died!!!!!!!!! :grr:

[Amonester]

8. and there are no flowers left to send to the dead patient

supposedly, Rumsferatu's got them all for himself.

Why isn't that war criminal at The Hague yet?

[rucky]

6. This will not be on the Petraeus report.

penned by the White House.

down the memory hole you go!

[Babsbrain]

7. Bush GUARANTEED the deaths of thousands this month

I am not a military expert, but it doesn't take one to realize that whomever is doing the killing over there HAD to create chaos before Sept. 15. They know that their only option is for the American people to join their voices to stop this insanity. They had to prove that the surge is not working. Massive numbers of deaths are guaranteed, thanks to that idiot son.